Waite Hoyt
Waite Charles Hoyt (September 9, 1899 – August 25, 1984) was an American right-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball, one of the dominant pitchers of the 1920s, and the winningest pitcher for the New York Yankees during that decade. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in . Early life Hoyt was born in Brooklyn, New York and attended Erasmus Hall High School."The Rumble: AN OFF-THE-BALL LOOK AT YOUR FAVORITE SPORTS CELEBRITIES", New York Post, December 31, 2006. Accessed December 13, 2007. "The five Erasmus Hall of Fame legends include Raiders owner Al Davis, Bears quarterback Sid Luckman, Yankee pitching great Waite Hoyt, Billy Cunningham and Knicks founder Ned Irish." Despite being a Dodgers fan he was signed to a professional contract by New York Giants manager John McGraw when he was but 15. Because of his extreme youth, he was immediately nicknamed "The Schoolboy Wonder." But Hoyt would not achieve his greatest success as a Giant. After a brief stint with the Giants, McGraw sent the young pitcher to the minors for seasoning. It wasn't long before he reappeared in the majors, this time with the Boston Red Sox. His performance there attracted the attention of the Yankees, who acquired him in . In his first season as a Yankee, , he rose to instant stardom, winning 19 games and pitching three complete games in the World Series without allowing an earned run — over his career, he would win six American League pennants with the Yankees and one with the Philadelphia Athletics. In his finest years with the Yankees, and , Hoyt would post records of 22 wins and 7 losses with a 2.64 ERA and 23 wins and 7 losses with a 3.36 ERA. During his 21 year career, he won ten or more games twelve times, eleven of them consecutively. Hoyt pitched for 8 years after leaving the Yankees in , but did not consistently display similar levels of pitching dominance. Hoyt finished his career with a win-loss record of 237–182 and an ERA of 3.59. By the time he retired in , he was the winningest pitcher in World Series history (his World Series record with the Yankees and A's is 6 wins and 4 losses). His Brooklyn origins along with his unique surname led to the probably-apocryphal story that he was injured on one occasion, and a fellow Brooklynite remarked, "Hurt's hoyt!" In addition to the "Schoolboy" moniker appearing on his Hall of Fame plaque, Hoyt was also known as "The Merry Mortician." For when he wasn't playing baseball he spent days working as a funeral director and nights appearing on vaudeville. As a vaudevillian, he appeared with many of the most well-known performers of the day, including Jack Benny, Jimmy Durante, George Burns, and others. He kept in good shape during the off-season by playing semi-pro basketball. He added to his repertoire by becoming an accomplished painter and writer. He was well-known as the pre-eminent authority on Babe Ruth, who was his teammate for almost 10 years. Robert Creamer, author of the definitive Ruth biography Babe, indicated in that book's introduction that the novella-length memoir written by Hoyt shortly after Ruth's death was "by far the most revealing and rewarding work on Ruth." A longtime member of Alcoholics Anonymous, during the Old-Timers' Day, Hoyt said wistfully that he'd have won 300 games if he had stopped drinking during his playing days. After joining A.A., he remained sober for more than forty years. As a broadcaster After retiring as a player, Hoyt went into broadcasting. During a stint as the host of "Grandstand and Bandstand" on WMCA, he tried to audition for the Yankees, but sponsor Wheaties vetoed him out of hand. The common view at the time was that former players didn't have enough of a vocabulary to be successful broadcasters. However, Hoyt was well known for telling umpire George Moriarty that he was "out of his element" and was better suited to being a policeman so he could "insult people with impunity." Dodgers' voice Red Barber, however, thought more of Hoyt's abilities and hired him as color commentator and host of the pre- and post-game shows in . After two years, he became the play-by-play voice of the Cincinnati Reds, a post he held for 24 years. He became as much a celebrity with the Reds as he was while a player. He was well known for calling games exclusively in past tense, which was and still is unusual for sportscasting. Where most baseball announcers would say, "Here's the pitch!" Hoyt would say, "There was the pitch!" A typical Hoyt call went, "The shortstop fielded it (the ball), threw it to first, and the runner beat the throw." He told author Curt Smith that he felt using past tense was more accurate because "as I speak to you, what happened a moment ago is gone." On August 16, , Hoyt paid tribute to Babe Ruth, speaking on the air without notes for two hours upon learning of his death after a game. He called the 1961 World Series for NBC, during a time when it was common for the network to use the home team's primary broadcasters for the Fall Classic. He retired from full-time broadcasting work in , though he would later make appearances on both radio and television including doing the color commentary for the Reds telecasts in . Hoyt was known for entertaining radio audiences with anecdotes during rain delays. A selection of these stories is collected on two record albums "The Best of Waite Hoyt in the Rain" and "The Best of Waite Hoyt in the Rain, Volume 2." Whether one considers it a blessing or a curse on the subsequent evolution of sports broadcasting, Hoyt was one of the first professional athletes to develop a successful career in broadcasting and his name frequently appears on "all-time best" broadcaster lists. On June 10, , the Cincinnati Reds honored Hoyt, Marty Brennaman, and Joe Nuxhall with replica microphones that will hang on the wall near the radio booth. Later life An eternal optimist, Hoyt married his third wife, Betty Dearie in 1982. Dearie, a longtime fan, was an associate of Warren Giles, first President of the Reds and subsequently of the National League)) Betty still lives in Cincinnati. Betty is interviewed extensively in the video biography "Waite's World". The bio was released on VHS in 1997 (is now DVD www.waitehoyt.com) and includes interviews with his son Chris, the late hall of fame broadcaster Joe Nuxhall, reporter and television personality Nick Clooney, former Red Jim O'Toole and many more. The aging Hoyt died of heart failure while preparing for what he realized would be his final visit to the Hall of Fame, in [[Cooperstown, New York. See also * List of Major League Baseball leaders in career wins * List of Major League Baseball saves champions * List of Major League Baseball wins champions References 4. Waite's World: The Life and Times of Waite Hoyt. Dir. Donn Burrows. DVD. Schoolboy Wonder Productions, 1997, www.waitehoyt.com External links * Category:1899 births Category:1984 deaths Category:Hall of Fame Category:1923 New York Yankees World Series Championship Team Category:1927 New York Yankees World Series Championship Team Category:1928 New York Yankees World Series Championship Team Category:Major League Baseball pitchers Category:Boston Red Sox players Category:New York Yankees players Category:New York Giants baseball players Category:Detroit Tigers players Category:Philadelphia Athletics players Category:Brooklyn Dodgers players Category:Pittsburgh Pirates players Category:Major league players from New York Category:American League wins champions Category:Major League Baseball announcers Category:Cincinnati Reds Category:German-American sportspeople Category:Erasmus Hall High School alumni Category:Vaudeville performers Category:People from Brooklyn Category:Players